Rank 99
by RookieBookie22
Summary: Three boys find themself in a new place, full of dangers. Will they survive all of the tests?


Rank 99

Creed was extremely bored. "Sleep, a remarkable thing, why do we sleep, well we have gone over teacher said. "What Creed?"

"Why are you asking us if you already have so many times?" Creed asked, his Italian accent was thick, everyone could barely understand what he was saying.

"Could you repeat that please?" asked. Everyone laughed, Creed's face turned red and he hid his face in his jacket.

"Never mind," He mumbled. Class continued as usual, nothing else happened and Creed didn't say another word.

That night he stood on his roof, the fresh air hit him. He spotted the two biggest bullies in school walking by. They saw him on the roof. He knew they would beat him up like usual because one of them lived in this apartment building too, everyone at school did much worse than just making fun of his accent. The two boys started calling up to him, although he was on top of the building he could still hear them, he tried to tune them out and just focus on the sounds of the night. The bullies kept yelling at him, then the wind gave one last push. He looked at the sky with all of the beautiful stars one star seemed to shine brighter than the rest, his watch struck twelve. The night was cool and misty, he felt the wind brush against his shoulder. He stumbled over his own feet, the wind took him away into the night, the edge of the tall building soon feel behind him as the whispers of the wind took him towards the ground below.

Donovan ran down the field, he could hear his brother behind him. The field was covered in mud and so were his shoes. His brother was shouting threats at him as they both ran. Donovan ran to the edge of the field and stood next to the cliff. The wind pushed him closer. His brother was also coming closer, shouting at him, accusing him for things he didn't do, telling him he hated him, Donovan could think of better, meaner things to say then that, he was smart enough to know his brother did more than hate him, he envied him. Donovan gazed into the night sky waiting for something, he didn't know what yet, but he had a feeling that soon he would find out. The brightest star in the sky was shining right in his eyes, besides that darkness filled everything around him, he guessed it was around midnight. His brother came closer only a few feet away now. Then the wind pushed, hard. He got knocked into the huge void in front of him. A big branch stuck out from the side, he grabbed onto it. His fingers slipping from the sweat on his hands.

"Help!" he called for his brother. Rian ran to the cliff, he spotted him.

"Hold on! He called, as he ran off. Donovan assumed he wouldn't come back, so he let go. Seconds later Rian came with some rope, he spotted his brother's body at the bottom of the chasam. He knew he had let go, and he knew why. Rian sat at the edge off the cliff softly crying into his hands.

Zander didn't like his chances. The men were right behind him, and he knew those guns were real. He hid in the shadow of a nearby gas station. He could hear their footsteps walking into the store, he peeked through the window.

"Have you seen a boy about 15, not very tall, and he has dark brown hair?" one of the men asked.

"Don't believe so." The old man at the desk said.

"Alright if you see him call us, we can take care of him."The other man said. They left the store after they gave the man their business card and once they were gone he stepped in, to get out of the rain. Zander walked around to make it look like he wanted to buy something, but then he saw the candy aisle. Zander checked his pockets, then he was interrupted by the sound of the door opening, the guys came back in and saw him, they ran at him and pointed the gun at his head. They dragged him out into the cold night, the rain had been replaced with strong wind. He heard the trigger being pulled and time slowed down, he tried to move his head in time but the wind worked against him.

* * *

#1 Creed

My heart was beating fast, my lungs burned. I slowly sat up and finally came back to reality. I was in a huge room with a high roof. The floor was made of stone and the walls were metal. I looked around to see that there were two other people in the room, one of them was sprawled out on the floor, the other one was leaning up against the cold walls. He saw that I was awake so he slowly limped over to me, I backed away, his side smile told me he was nice but his muscular arms told me to run in the other direction.

"Where are we?" I asked hoping he had an answer. I recognized the terror in my voice.

"I don't know, I woke up here, same as you." He explained. His accent was as thick as mine, I was pretty sure he was irish, but I didn't want to ask. "I'm Donovan, I guess it's nice to meet you." He said holding out a hand, I shook it. He looked about the same age as me, 15. His windswept auburn hair almost covered one of his golden eyes.

"I'm Creed." I said trying to talk as little as possible. We heard a gasp for air coming from the corner of the room. The other guy had woken up. He looked startled as he slowly stood up. He had blood dripping down the side of his face, it looked like he had been shot, with no wound. His dark hair and pale skin seemed to make him look more intimidating. He started walking over to us, he looked really mad. I backed away as he walked over, Donavan however walked closer, he seemed to be challenging him to try and lay a finger on him.

"Where are we?" He questioned, he sounded like he wanted to kill us.

"I don't know," Donovan sounded calm, I wasn't sure how.

"How do we get out?" The new guy asked.

"I don't know," Donovan repeated. "I'm Donovan and this is Creed."

"Hi, I'm Creed," I said, I don't know why, I think the nervousness was taking over.

"Creed, be quiet." Donovan urged me.

"I'm Zander, why are we here?" He asked the anger was fading from his voice.

"We don't know anything about why or where or, yeah, I can be quiet." I said.

"Are you sure you can be quiet?" Donovan asked me, his voice was laced with annoyance. I furiously nodded my head. Silence filled the room, Zander walked over to the walls and started banging on them. Donovan felt around for light switches, I looked for other things around the room, anything that could help. A few minutes later we regrouped in the middle.

"Nothing!" Zander yelled out of anger.

"Don't lose hope!" I said. " We have to keep looking."

"Where, we looked everywhere!" Donovan pointed out. I walked around the room looking for more and that's when I found it, button on the wall. I was sure that hadn't been there before.

"Guys, over here!" I called. Donovan and Zander ran over and stood next to me.

"Well, push it!" Zander demanded. I pushed the button and three huge spotlights came down and focused on us.

"What the?" Donovan started. The spotlights followed us around the room, they didn't go away. Zander tried pushing the button again but nothing happened.

"Congratulations!" a loud voice yelled it was coming from all directions. "You are now at rank number one! Please rest and prepare for your next test!" The voice slowly faded away and part of the wall opened, through the opening was a long white hallway. We looked at each other for a moment.

"Well, we have no other choice." Donovan confirmed, and lead us through the doorway.

#2 Donovan

As soon as we went through the door I knew we wouldn't have a good time here. After the long hallway came an opening into a large room. White beds lined the walls, but they were split up by white curtains and in groups of three, above the beds there were signs that had "ranks" on them. A woman came over to us.

"Oh, hello, you boys must be the new ones." She said flatly.

"What are you talking about?" Zander questioned. Before he could say anymore the woman lead us to our beds, we were rank number one.

"These are your beds, and dinner is at 6:00." Said the woman and she walked away.

"Well, that's interesting," I said.

"I still want to know why we're here. Last thing I remember is dying!" Zander shouted, suddenly he stopped and looked at us, his face had turned pale. "I mean-"

"Same," Creed agreed.

"Yeah, that must be why we're here," I pointed out. The others agreed. I liked these two, I assumed we would be stuck together for a long time, but I didn't tell them that. Creed pushed some of his honey colored hair away from his hazel eyes.

"What time is it?" Zander wondered. I spotted a clock in the corner of the room.

"5:26," I read. "That gives us some time to explore!" I commented. They both gave me mischievous smiles. It felt good to make someone smile, even if they could have been fake. I think we had all accepted the fact that we died. Our new lives were awaiting us. My two new friends were definitely the kind of people who understood what it's like to be hurt, bullied, and used. I had a feeling that they weren't sad about leaving their old lives behind. I didn't like this place and I definitely didn't want to stay here, but I really didn't have a choice. The huge white room was intimidating, I knew Zander and Creed thought so too. I felt something off about this place but I couldn't place my finger on it, the other boys from other ranks seemed, beaten, almost lifeless. I came back to reality, Zander and Creed were discussing which hallway to go through first. we ended up walking down the hallway on the right, looking for nothing in particular.

#3 Zander

The clock struck 5:59 as we got closer to the dining room. I had just decided to accept my new life. My old one was full of hurting and traitors, not that I'm complaining but this seemed much better, whatever it was. As we walked toward the dining room our conversation drifted to our old lives, we talked about our families and our schools. We finally got to dinner. The room was huge! Exactly 99 tables were out and each one had a label on it. We sat at the table labeled rank one. The lady who was at the front desk called out us first to go get our food, man I felt bad for rank 99. We walked over to the 8 huge tables that held all of the food. If you think you have seen a lot of food then trust me you haven't seen this. The tables were stacked high with all of the food you can imagine. I put tons of stuff on my tray and sat back down with Donovan and Creed. We were only five minutes into dinner when a guy came up to us.

"Are you guys the newbies? It looks like it. I'm Justin, it's nice to meet all of you! There's no need to introduce yourselves, I already know all of your names. I'm in rank 55 and I've been assigned to show you around!" Justin's light brown hair and blue eyes made him look like a model. His sharp jawline looked like it could cut veggies. I didn't like him, Donovan seemed pleased to have someone to show us around.

"Could you please explain what this place is?" Donovan asked politely.

"Sure, they leave everyone in the dark about that." Justin pulled up chair and fixed his hair. Yep, I definitely didn't like this guy. "This place is called Boy's Training Facility. We all live and train in this huge building, we also pass tests here to get to higher ranks. There is another place like this one, it has no name but there are ranks there too and things run the same way there as they do here. There is one place the two facilities meet up. The Arena, when you get to level ten you go to The Arena to fight the same rank as you from that other place. Every ten ranks you get you have to go to The Arena to fight. So when you get to ten that is the first time you fight, then you get to 20 then 30 and so on, but you skip 90 and wait until you get to level 99, then the real fight happens, that one is called the final battle in that one you have to fight to kill." Those word hung in the air for a few moments, a tingle ran down my spine. Justin looked at us and arched an eyebrow. "Any questions?" Justin asked us and waited. We were silent letting what he said before sink in. "Well don't all ask at once."

"Once you get to the last level what do you do?" Donovan questioned.

"Well, most people don't survive the final battle because you aren't only fighting your opponent, your also fighting the arena. It plays tricks on you and makes impossible obstacle courses." Justin had a way with words, with every sentence I wanted to be here less and less.

"What if you do? I mean survive." Creed asked. I could barely understand him but Justin could just fine.

"Well then you get to go back to your old life. So basically you're fighting for your life. A cure to death." Justin explained.

"So we're dead," Creed conformed.

"Yeah, welcome to the afterlife newbies." Justin said and walked back to his table.

#4 Creed

When dinner was over we walked back to the huge room full of beds. There was a basket at the end of all of our beds full of clothes. All of our old clothes, it was weird. Once Donovan opened his, the expression on his face told me to open mine. There were two extra sets of clothes. One to train in and one to go to the big battles in. I was pleased to find that all of my clothes were washed. I decided to change into my pajamas. Zander and Donovan had already changed before me. We sat at our beds and quietly talked for a minute. Then we all got so tired we passed out.

I woke up at 12:06 to an alarm. I pulled back the curtain to see a fire had started right in front of our little 'room'. I ran to Donovan's bed and shook him awake. When he heard the alarm he froze. I ran to Zander and woke him up too. All three of us were wide awake now.

"What do we do?" I yelled over the crackling of the fire. Donovan already had an idea. He jumped onto the bed and then he grabbed the long curved pole that connected the curtain to the wall. He flipped over it and landed on the other side. The bottom of the curtain was now in flames. Donovan was rushing around trying to put the fire out. Zander tried to get to the other side of the curtain too. He jumped onto the bed and grabbed onto the pole just like Donovan had but instead of doing a heroic flip he just fell. I heard him hit the ground, hard. I looked around the little room desperately trying to find something that would help me. I couldn't find anything that could get me out of there, so I had to climb. I stood on Zander's bed, I had to jump to reach the pole, Donovan and Zander had no trouble reaching it. I got a good grip on it and I pulled myself up to see Donovan and Zander looking for ways to put the fire out. A layer of blankets covered part of the fire, I guessed that was Donovan's idea. I feel off the bar and nearly landed on top of Zander.

"Watch it!" Zander yelled at me. I ran to the bathroom to get water. I filled the trash can and ran back out. I poured water on the flames, they died down but they didn't stop. Donovan yanked a curtain off one of the rods. He threw it on the fire and jumped on it. The flame disappeared, the room was full of smoke. Three spotlights appeared and the smoke disappeared. The spotlights followed us. I was pretty sure we had been there before.

"Congratulations!" A voice yelled. All of the damage disappeared and everything went back to normal and our rank moved up to rank two, all of the other ranks moved up as well and rank 99 went to rank 99 B.

In the morning we went to breakfast. We sat at the second table and three really confused looking kids sat at our old table. Rank 99 B wasn't there. I saw Justin coming over to our table, giving us a small smile.

"Good morning! Congrats on your new rank! I'm supposed to help you guys until you get to rank 30, so for now you can't get rid of me!" I heard Zander let out an annoyed sigh, Donovan elbowed him.

"Where is rank 99 B?" I asked.

"They are at the Arena preparing to fight. Just like the new rank 99 will do tomorrow, everyday we get put through tests. So everyday you will get to go up another rank, unless you fail a test. If you guys fail your test today the you'll go to rank 2 B. Then you have to do two tests in one day, talk about harsh!" Justin finished. I nodded in agreement. I was wondering why anyone would want to be put through any of this when Justin stood up. "You guys need to train! After breakfast meet me outside. My rank will be there to help as well. See you guys soon!" Justin went back to his table, when he sat down he started talking to a really buff guy with dirty blond hair and a nose ring, I was 100% sure I didn't want to train with that guy. On the other side of Justin sat a short guy with bright purple hair and piercing green eyes. He had a long scar white running from his jawline to his collarbone. Yep, I was definitely scared now. Zander and Donovan stood up to go get food so I assumed that we had been called. I walked to the food line and grabbed whatever looked good. We ate in silence and when we all finally finished Justin was waiting with his rank outside of the facility.

"Guys, this is Demetrius, Justin said pointing to the shorter guy, and this is Vincent he said gesturing over to the other dude. I heard Zander and Donovan whispering and I decided to get in on the convostation.

"-why do you always have to be so mean?" I heard Donovan ask.

"What are you talking about? I just really don't want to train with Justin and his goons." Zander said that a little to loud and Vincent glared at us, I smiled at him for some unknown reason, I could tell he already didn't like us. Justin and Demetrius were standing shoulder to shoulder with their backs to us talking quietly about something they didn't want us to hear.

Finally after some more waiting Justin turned around. Demetrius turned around too looking very unsure, but Justin gave us a reassuring smile, I knew we were about to begin.

#5 Donovan

I knew from looking at the other two guys in Justin's rank this was going to be hard, and boy was I wrong. It was worse, so much worse. It started off easy, Justin showed us some simple punches and how to kick correctly. We practiced that for a long time until we all got pretty good at it, next we deflected punches, that was simple and didn't take to long. After Justin taught us the basics until it was time for some exercise. Apparently Vincent was the master at this so he sent us through some simple running courses in the forest. It was all super easy until we saw the steps. The steps were tons of really small steps with no railing and lead to nothing. There were so many I got tired just looking at it. Zander and Creed looked so unenthusiastic about climbing the steps that Justin had to give us a little pep talk.

"Don't worry, I know you guys can do it. We have all day today to practice. This is all a test so if you do well you go into the next rank!" All I could think of was how much I didn't want to climb those small stone steps.

"Look, you guys should be able to do this, it looks really hard, but trust me, it's worse. When you hear me blow the whistle you better start running up those stairs." Vincent gave us no time to argue because he had that whistle in his mouth faster than I could think of the right words to politely describe how much I didn't want to do this. I would describe running up and back down those steps but that would take a lot of complaining. I'll just say this; it really didn't take that long in reality but it seemed to take hours!

I was the first back down and, of course, Creed was last. I felt really bad for him because nobody seemed surprised. All of us were out of breath and sitting on the ground. Justin and Demetrius looked like they were on the same topic as they were before we started, but as soon as I got close to the bottom. They watched us trip down the last few steps. Justin looked pleased, Demetrius looked very amused by our struggles, and Vincent just looked slightly annoyed. I sat up and looked at all of them, they looked very intimidating Justin was on the far left crossing his arms giving us a little smirk next to him was Demetrius, he looked at all three of us in the eyes and I could see the corner of his mouth twitch, almost forming a smile with his hands folded behind his back, and then there was Vincent, he slowly folded his arms, with a completely blank look except his eyes, I could see annoyance and just a flicker of satisfaction.

"Good job, get up and follow me," Demetrius took us further into the forest and suddenly stopped. Justin looked alarmed and Vincent drew two golden swords. Demetrius had a dagger at his belt but a long sword in his hand. Justin put on a pair of brass knuckles for each hand. They formed a circle around us. I heard footsteps somewhere but the trees in this part of the forest the trees were so thick and close together that I couldn't see very much at all. This time I heard what sounded like whispers above us.

"Don't listen!" Vincent shouted and covered his ears, we all did the same but the whispers grew louder and soon it was almost unbearable. After a few moments they loud whispers stopped all together. We looked at each other before uncovering our ears. Behind us someone shouted.

"Attack!" someone yelled, I couldn't hear him well. Justin looked at us and yelled something else couldn't hear, The loud whispers definitely affected my eardrums. But even a deaf person isn't dumb enough not to understand what Justin was trying to say. We took off running the way we came, Vincent's exercise didn't seem to be paying off. My joints started hurting more and more but luckily my hearing was slowly coming back.

I was running next to Creed. We locked eyes and at the same time ran faster, we made our way up to the front where Justin and Zander were running. The forest made running much harder than it sounds. Justin suddenly made a left turn and we all followed him. We were soon running in front of a huge structure made of stone. Justin ran up to it and started looking for something on the wall, he found a small button and pressed his thumb onto it. A big chunk of the wall slid into the ground and left us with a passageway. As soon as the door opened the smell of damp grass and other wet dirt like things flew out and hit me like a wrecking ball. I didn't want to going there but now it seemed like I had no choice.

#6 Zander

There was definitely something wrong with this place, I knew my fellow rank members felt the same way. We had to go in the scary place anyway. As soon as we got in there Justin waited by the door for the two guys with complicated names from his rank. Vincent ran in with only one sword and Demetrius ran in with two, he handed the shorter, golden one to Vince. I noticed Justin's look of relief when Demetrius ran in the building. We were all out of breath and trying to catch some when the enemy appeared. Justin quickly pressed his thumb to a new button on the inside. It looked like it was scanning his finger and finally shut the door. I was curious as to how this worked. I stood up in the darkness, I remembered a big hallway being on the other side of the room before the light was shut out. Vincent looked like he had been here before, Justin and Demetrius did too. All three of them started walking down the huge hall. I followed along with Donovan and Creed. Of course, like in all scary dungeons, there was a torch on the wall, Demetrius grabbed it and lead the way into a huge foyer. I saw three doors, they were labeled _Facility_ , _Training_ _Course_ , and _Arena_.

"These three doors lead to exactly what it says." Vince informed us, like I hadn't guessed that already.

"What were those things?" Donovan asked, assuming it was a good time to ask.

"Whispers, they are the most deadly creature ever created," Demetrius explained like it was nothing. I wondered who made them.

"A guy who ran away created them because he was mad at the Training Facility. He decided to get his revenge. After he created the Whispers he ran into the forest, people say he lives in a cottage, but how would they know." Justin added.

"What was his name?" Creed questioned.

"Maximus," Vincent said, that word hung in the air like fog. We stopped talking as Demetrius went through the door that was labeled _Arena._

"We're not going back to the facility." Donovan pointed out, I could hear the worry in his voice.

"Nope, the day's not over yet, we have a lot more to do," Demetrius said with a smirk, he seemed to be having a lot of fun and be getting a good laugh out of our situation.

"What do you call this place?" I asked out of curiosity.

"These are the tunnels, we use them for a quick escape. Justin explained to us. We walked a little farther until we came to an opening.

The Arena was huge! It looked like a football stadium. The ground was sand and the walls were sandstone. Although we were underground the top was open. The sky was showing and there were trees surrounding the stadium. People were training there and half of the battle ground was reserved for the people who were doing their final battle today, they were only training. Vincent and Justin went to the stands to watch.

"You all need weapons if you want to fight in the battles, he started, "line up," we did what he asked.

Donovan ended up with bow and arrows, Zander had two guns and brass knuckles, but when it was my turn Demetrius stopped.

"Come with me."

#7 Creed

Demetrius lead me to a room attached to the stadium. It was round with a tall ceiling. In one corner there were stuffed dummies to train with and another chest full of weapons. Demetrius dug through the chest taking out a sword, it was short with a red copper blade, not from blood it was just red. The handle was golden with elaborate designs etched into it. Demetrius examined the blade and ran his finger across the flat part, I noticed the handle glowed in the dimly lit room.

"This blade belonged to the best trainer of all time. He won the final battle, but after that he vanished, nobody knows where he went, his name was Raymond North."

"You knew him personally?" I asked hoping it wasn't a touchy subject.

"Yeah, I looked up to him, when I was in rank one he was in rank 55. Ray was the best fighter I had ever seen, but now that he's gone someone needs to take his place and become the next best fighter, your group needs _you_ to be the new Raymond North." He stretched his hand out to mine and put the grip in my palm. I didn't know what to say. I also didn't know why it was happening to me.

The sword was light and the grip was comfortable. I didn't want to take the sword, it wasn't mine to take. I decided that it was nice of him to offer it to me and he had so much faith in me that I couldn't turn him down.

"He was your trainer." I noted. "Thank you, so much for this. I'll try to become the best fighter I can." I assured him. He tried not to show it but I could tell he was happy, he looked proud of me.

We walked out of the room and into the stadium the other two were practicing with Justin and Vincent. When those two saw me holding the sword their faces turned to shock, then Justin's quickly changed to a proud look of reassurance. Vincent looked at Demetrius who nodded, then looked back at me. He smiled -for once- and nodded.

For the next two hours we trained with our new weapons. It felt good to train with someone who was the sword master, that was Demetrius's title. The blade felt like it was made for my hand. With every strike and slice it felt like I was made for this.

I was sore when we headed back down the tunnels for dinner. This time we went through the _facility_ door.

It was almost exactly 6:00 when we made it back. We would have gotten to watch a final battle if stupid dinner wasn't in the way, but it was. I sat at our table and barely got time to eat because we were talking so much about what happened in the stadium.

"Vincent was teaching me about accuracy, he said we'd work on speed later." Donovan explained. It was really fun to hear about what they were doing to.

"Justin was showing me some more advanced punches and how to load my guns super fast, it took awhile to figure out how to work it though." Zander told us.

"Demetrius gave me their old trainer's sword to use, his name was Raymond and he was supposedly the best fighter they have ever had here." I said.

"That story totally tops mine!" Donovan laughed. Zander was quiet, he looked paler than usual.

"Hey, you okay?" Donovan asked good naturedly.

"Yeah, I just feel kinda sick, probably from all the food. I'm gonna head off to bed. See you in the morning," and with that Zander stood up to go back to the room. Donovan and I looked at each other for a moment. What was wrong with him?

"Do you think he's okay?" I asked Donovan. Donovan nodded and looked in the direction Zander went. Although we said nothing more about it we knew he wasn't okay.

#8 Donovan

I knew Zander wasn't okay when he insisted on going to _bed_. And then he left _dinner early_! I knew something was up, and this all happened after Creed mentioned Raymond. I was really confused about why this was all happening. Maybe he knew Raymond, or maybe he really did feel sick but that's unlikely. After dinner Creed and I went to a little training room we found in the facility. We trained there for a long time, probably around three hours. We both took nice long showers and headed back to the room.

When we got there Zander was gone. We looked everywhere for him. We asked Justin too but nobody had seen him. We walked outside to look for him in the woods. It was dark and I quickly realized that this was a bad idea.

The forest was Misty and wet from the rain earlier that day. I could barely see where I was going. Creed tripped twice but we both finally bumped into a small cottage. As soon as we saw it we knew what it was. We stepped inside and saw Zander sprawled out on the ground. I looked around the cottage while Creed made sure Zander was okay. We heard footsteps coming close to the cottage. There was nowhere to hide so we grabbed our weapons.

A man who looked to be about 18 walked in slowly with a sword raised. He had a slightly upturned nose and dark hair with a shock of white at the tips. He had dark eyes and muscular arms. His face was handsome, but unusual in a fetching way.

"That sword you carry, it belonged to Raymond North. Why do have it?" Maximus asked Creed. He looked frozen, so scared so I had to say something.

"You knew him?" I questioned.

"Of course, I trained him. Well not really but when he stumbled upon my little living he ended up coming here everyday to train," Maximus glared at us. "Why do you have his sword?" He asked again.

"Demetrius gave it to him." I said calmly.

"Demetrius? I remember him, Raymond talked about his students and now I am looking at the students of his students. How odd how things like that happen. Your friend here, Zander, was close with Raymond. Ray talked about him all the time."

"Really?" Was all Creed could manage.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, he had to be wrong.

"He always talked about a cute boy who lived across from him with brown hair and pale skin, named Zander," Creed and I just stared at him with wide eyes. Was what he was saying true?

"What did you do to him?" Creed asked, I could hear the horror in his voice.

"I knocked him out, he should be awake soon. Look, I can't have you going around telling people about me. Promise me that you won't tell anyone, if you do well then.." Maximus didn't have to finish the sentence.

"We won't if you promise to help train is like you did with Raymond. We need all the help we can get." Creed stated, I sensed no fear in his words. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! "I made a promise to someone and I intend on keeping it, so now I need you to promise this to me."

"You are interesting, and brave to ask this of me. I agree, we start tomorrow at ten, you all better show." Maximus said. And with that he shoved us out into the forest with a unconscious Zander.

The walk back was long and Zander was heavy. As soon as we got back into our room we set Zander down and went to bed.

#9 Zander

I woke up in my bed, rank three, yay. At first I thought last night had been a dream but when we got to breakfast the questioning started.

"Zander, we need to talk," apparently that was Donovan's approach to the conversation.

"Yeah," was all Creed had to say.

"Why were you in the forest?" Donovan asked

"To clear my head," I answered honestly.

"Do you know Raymond North?" Creed asked getting straight to the point.

"Yeah, he was my neighbor. We were good friends," I decided to leave out the part where we kissed once, they didn't need to know that. I stared at my plate.

"Why didn't you tell us that?" Creed questioned.

"I don't know, I was scared. I'm scared of this place, I'm scared of what's going to happen!"

"Zander, we're all scared. We need this though, all of the training." Donovan told me. "How did he die?" I didn't want to answer his question.

"He was murdered at school, by a teacher. After that I was so, lonely. Ray was my only friend," I could feel my eyes start to water. Donovan just stared at me and Creed was suddenly interested in his plate. Donovan was about to ask something but Creed caught his attention and shook his head. I was relieved that they wouldn't ask anymore questions.

"Time to train!" Justin yelled, we probably all looked sad because Justin's face quickly turned to confusion.

"What's up?" He questioned, it was the kind of what's up that meant what's wrong, not how are you.

"Nothing. We're fine," I stated and stood up. Creed and Donovan did the same and followed Justin and his goons down to the arena.

We practiced for such a long time but all I could think about was what we were going to do at ten tonight. Creed told me about the deal he had made with Maximus during the long walk through the forest and to the arena. I'd say I was getting a lot better with my weapons but Creed and Donovan were so much better, I asked them about it and they said that they trained a lot yesterday without me.

Finally we were finished. Vincent gave us some water and sent us back to the Facility. We did some of our own training and hurried to dinner.

"Do you thinks he's gonna kill us?" Creed asked as soon as we sat down with our food.

"He made a promise, I'm sure he'll keep it." Donovan reassured us. I don't think it made a difference though.

"Sure isn't enough," I said, and after that I thought about all of the ways this could go down. Maybe it would be simple stuff, easy to learn. I needed to get back to reality, this guy was scary and we all knew it so there was no way he was going to go easy on us. I was ready for anything he was going to throw at us.

We slipped out into the woods after dinner. Creed ran his hands through his hair, it was a habit of his.

" How are we going to find the hut again?" He complained.

"It's not a hut and it won't be that hard to find," Donovan said once again looking on the bright side. I ,of course, was not a enthusiastic as he was.

It seemed like we had walked for miles until we finally saw lights peeking through the huge trees. I exchanged a look of triumph with Donovan and we headed towards what we thought was the little cottage.


End file.
